Innovation, is a subject of considerable interest for entrepreneurs. They share a keen interest in learning how to foster innovation and creativity in ways that help firms to create increasing amounts of wealth. Research on innovation and creativity has increased ever since they were considered to be the key to building a competitive advantage. In fact, it is a challenge for organizations to sustain innovation. In this chapter, we explore the factors that entrepreneurs should address to channel innovation in their organizations. Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, requires the funneling and implementation of creative ideas, leading to innovation. This chapter is particularly relevant to global managers seeking to identify inhibitors of creativity and business innovation and how to combat the roadblocks and create a sustainable innovation environment. The chapter discusses the three essential components that must be considered to spur innovation. We highlight the best practices associated with these factors through a case study of three organizations.
TopBackground
Creativity in an organization is a continuous search for, and solving of, problems and the creation and implementation of new solutions for the betterment of the organization, its customers, and its members (Baccarani, 2009). Creativity is usually defined as “the production of novel that are useful and appropriate to the situation”. Creativity has many synonyms, such as productive thinking, divergent thinking, originality, imagination, brainstorming, and so on (Chen & Kaufmann, 2008). Oldham and Cummings (1996) define creative performance as products, or procedures that satisfy two conditions:
Innovation can be understood as a process of learning and knowledge creation through which new problems are defined and new knowledge is developed to solve them (Lam, 2010). It is defined as “the intentional generation, adoption and application of new processes, products or procedures that aim to benefit the individual, group or organization in question” (Lipponen et al., 2008). Simply put, innovation is about the creation and implementation of a new idea in a social context with the purpose of delivering commercial benefits (Khairuzzaman et al., 2007). Innovation is driven by employees’ resources: creativity, competence and problem-solving abilities (Hoyrup, 2010). These innovative activities are embedded in employees’ daily work activities – often in working teams – on the basis of their experience and on-the-job learning.